Mughal Administration c14.s1.1

c14.s1.1

The Mughal Government was forced to supply its own wants by becoming a producer of nearly everything it required, because in the 16th and 17th centuries our country was in an undeveloped economic condition, the modern private organisations of production and transport were wanting, and the Government itself took a somewhat patriarchal attitude in dealing with its servants and subjects. Such State-factories were an ancient institution of the land, as, throughout the middle ages, they were necessitated by the circumstances of the times. Thus, we read that Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq, in the late 14th century, maintained 36 *karkhanahs* on which probably fifty lakhs of Rupees were spent every year, at a time when the Rupee had at least 25 times its present purchasing power. Afif's *Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi*, pp. 334—340, gives a detailed description of the management of these factories, and the Arab geographer Shihabuddin Abul Abbas Ahmad al Dimishqi, writing from the reports of merchants, tells us something about their working. (Elliot, iii. 578.) For the palace workshops in Fatimid Egypt, see *Encyc. Islam*, ii. 17-18.